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| How do you grow healthy kids? Teach them about good healthy food and the lost art of cooking. |
How is this for a sobering statistic:
By 2030 it is predicted that 41% of the world’s population will be obese. Considering that, as of 2013, an astonishing 42 million kids under the age of five were overweight or obese that long-term prediction could very well come to pass.
How do you reverse the trend?
According to many health promotion specialists we need to teach people, especially kids, about good healthy food and the lost art of cooking.
Herein lies the problem:
Historically food knowledge has been passed on from one generation to the next but the traditional hand-off has been interrupted by our busy lives. Sure there are growing pockets of people interested in whole food, local food and getting back to home cooking (and those who have simply always cooked) but for the most part we’re a society of convenience food.
As from-scratch cooking goes by the wayside and we rely more and more on processed food and rushed meals our collective waistline is growing. This disconnect with the food that our grandmothers prepared is part and parcel of the overall disconnect with where our food comes from and a cultural shift in how we eat, something that experts argue is a root cause of the current obesity epidemic.
Just how disconnected have we become?
My kids laugh at the YouTube video where a toddler at a petting zoo hears a rooster crow. Her mother asks what creature made that noise and she exclaims, “It’s a chicken nugget!” It is funny, but not funny, too.
In the Barbara Kingsolver Book, Animal, Vegetable Miracle, a researcher shows inner-city kids freshly pulled carrots and asks them what they are. The consensus is spaghetti.
A solution:
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For his annual Food Revolution Day challenge, Chef Jamie Oliver aims to change all of this. His goal is to get food education back into our schools across the G20 nations to teach kids where food comes from, how to grow it, cook it and how it affects their bodies. “My wish is to create a strong sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity,” says Jamie Oliver.
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The idea is that kids will take their learning home and influence eating habits of the entire family. And they’ll grow up to be more food literate and less likely to be duped by Nutella-esque “healthy breakfast campaigns” and the like. Considering that a child’s eating habits are pretty much set by the time they’re 12, educating kids sooner rather than later is essential.
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Teaching kids about food and cooking isn’t a total solution to the obesity epidemic but it will go a long way to help reconnect kids and adults with real food. And those who cook more generally have a better quality diet
Do you think all kids should learn about food and cooking at school?
Sign the petition at www.foodrevolutionday.com. On Food Revolution Day, May 15, celebrate by trying some new ingredients and cook with them from scratch.
